Relatively recently
[1995], idly scanning a bric-a-brac stall in Loughborough market, I chanced on a
Kennedy's 'The First Latin Primer'. When I was at the School in the twenties,
this was holy writ, rivalled only by Freddie's [Freddy Gray] Chemy sheets. I
willingly paid the 50p demanded. I deemed it poetic justice that, for a mere
trifle, I could gain untrammelled dominion over one of the objects which, as I
saw it, epitomised the sadistic torment of my youth.

I graduated to the first
form of LGS in 1921, from the kindergarten at the High School, Fairfield was
then still a residence. The mistress was a Miss B. Smith who subsequently
married to become Mrs Ryland. The Grammar School was contained, with one
exception, within the main site. All the class rooms were in the tower block,
with the science labs and the Sloyd [woodwork] room to the right and the reading
room to the left. The Barrow block was added whilst I was at the school. The
exception was the use, by the first form, of the school room attached to the
Victoria Street chapel. After morning assembly, the first form pupils would all
shamble off to Victoria Street. We returned to the main school now and then for
one or two subjects, such as Sloyd and P. T., but for the most part that was our
school.

All the other sites
around were then undeveloped, most were vegetable allotments - the aftermath of
the 1914-18 war. Sport - football and cricket - were played on the First Eleven
and on the L-shaped field on the right when entering the Walks. The Ten Acre was
acquired during my sojourn. Prior to this what is now the car park behind Hodson
Hall was pressed into service. Access was via a specially constructed footbridge
over the brook which flanks the western extremity of the Walks.

The science block
comprised the physics lab and the chemy lab, with a third, the lecture room.
The chemy lab was ruled over by the redoubtable Freddie Gray. In fact he had
an influence over the whole block, indeed over the entire school. He was an
absolute martinet. He brooked no indiscipline. He entered the names of miscreants
in a little note book from which they were never erased until retribution had
been exacted. But he was a most excellent teacher. He had precised the substance
of elementary chemistry on foolscap sheets, one per element. These had to be
committed to memory and woe betide if you were not word perfect - hence the
fame and notoriety of 'Freddie's sheets'.

Kennedy's Latin primer
on the other hand was a slim hard back publication. Latin was taught from the
third form on, in my case by Ernie Foxon. He was also a harsh disciplinarian,
but not so effective. Between the twin stones of Freddie's sheets and Kennedy's
primer we were ground exceeding small.

By comparison other
subjects came more easily, although Foggo also had charge of English. I started
French in the second form under Pip Phelps and Pal Imrie. Pip was quite
impossible ; he had a touch of madness about him. Pal was a good teacher but had
his idiosyncracies. He was a bachelor and lived permanently at the Great Central
Hotel, which gave him ready access to a cellar. Often his first period after
lunch would evoke what could have been called 'a charged atmosphere'. Crabby
Orchard taught mathematics - arithmetic, algebra and geometry. His nickname was
a pun on the apple tree of the orchard. he was far from crabby in demeanour,
rather he was haughty, a tall handsome man with a magnificent head of auburn
wavy hair. He left to join the Royal Air Force to which access at the time was
given only to the most talented. His place was taken by Bill Trowbridge. He must
have been a very young man when he revealed to me the secrets of calculus.

The swimming pool was
added in my time. As originally built it was an open air unheated unfiltered
pool bereft of changing accommodation. The cost was, however, raised almost
entirely by efforts within the School.

The Twenties are said to
have spawned the motorcar, flappers and the Charleston. The occasional car would
be seen at LGS, but not the other two.